Gang rape victim fights back for girls' education

By Catriona Davies, CNN

Updated 0948 GMT (1748 HKT) February 21, 2013

Gang rape victim who refused to be silenced8 photos

Mukhtar Mai's struggle for reform – Pakistani gang rape victim Mukhtar Mai, who gained prominence for her outspoken stance on the oppression of women, poses on February 19, 2013 during the Summit for Human Rights and Democracy in Geneva.

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Gang rape victim who refused to be silenced8 photos

Mukhtar Mai's struggle for reform – Mai has been running a girls' school and campaigning for women's rights since she was gang raped on the orders of a tribal court in 2002.

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Gang rape victim who refused to be silenced8 photos

Mukhtar Mai's struggle for reform – Mukhtar Mai's girls' school began with one teacher and three students (including herself) in a room of her family home. She now has 550 students.

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Gang rape victim who refused to be silenced8 photos

Mukhtar Mai's struggle for reform – Students listening to Mai in the village of Mirwala, 460 kilometers (285 miles) south of Islamabad. Mai believes education is the key to improving women's rights in Pakistan.

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Gang rape victim who refused to be silenced8 photos

Mukhtar Mai's struggle for reform – This photograph taken on February 28, 2011, shows women sitting at a vocational training center for women in a shelter set up by Mukhtar Mai to protect women in the village of Mirwala in Pakistan's central Punjab province.

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Gang rape victim who refused to be silenced8 photos

Mukhtar Mai's struggle for reform – Mai wrote a book about her experience that was published in 2006. It has since been translated into 23 languages. Here she is seen posing with the French edition outside the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

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Gang rape victim who refused to be silenced8 photos

Mukhtar Mai's struggle for reform – Pakistani human rights activists hold placards in the support of Mai during a demonstration in Karachi on April 23, 2011. Human Rights Watch called on Pakistan's government to seek a review of the acquittal of five men accused of her gang rape nearly a decade earlier.

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Gang rape victim who refused to be silenced8 photos

Mukhtar Mai's struggle for reform – Mukhtar Mai smiles next to her new born baby boy at a hospital in Multan on December 5, 2011.

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Story highlights

Mukhtar Mai was gang raped at the age of 28 on the orders of a tribal council

She refused to kill herself, as was expected, and fought for justice and women's rights

Mai is headline speaker at Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy

After Mukhtar Mai was gang raped on the orders of a tribal court in Pakistan in 2002, local tradition dictated she was expected to commit suicide.

She defied her attackers and fought for justice. More than a decade on, she is still fighting for women's rights in Pakistan and inspiring many around the world.

Mai's "honor revenge" was carried out on the orders of a jirga -- a tribal assembly -- because her 12-year-old brother was wrongly accused, according to a subsequent investigation ordered by the Punjab governor, of improper relations with a woman from another tribe.

"They decided I should be punished against my brother's crime," Mai, now 39, told CNN through an interpreter. "They immediately acted upon that decision and dragged me out. That was the hardest moment of my life."

"I was of the view that I must fight back to get my rights," said Mai. "First of all, there was the rape, and afterwards when I tried to call the police, I received death threats that I would be killed if I went to a police station.

"I sat inside the four walls of my home, but I was encouraged by well-wishers. My local community gave me the courage to fight back and go to the court."

"I decided that what happened to me should never happen to anyone else."

Far from destroying her, as her attackers would have expected, the incident made Mai determined to fight for women's rights and she set up the Mukhtar Mai Women's Organization.

Convinced that lack of education contributed to the poor treatment of women, Mai established a girls' school, initially in a single room of her family home with a just one teacher and three students, including herself.

"The first school I attended was my own school," said Mai.

For the first three years, she ran the school without any outside funding.

"Whatever I earned I used to pay the salary of the teacher. Sometimes I had to sell my own things," she said.

Mai's school gained worldwide attention following a spate of articles in the international press in 2005 and donations began to pour in -- as well as some government money.

Today the Mukhtar Mai Girl's Model School offers free education, books and uniforms to 550 girls from nursery to the beginning of high school.

However Mai said the school has received no government funding for the last three years and is struggling for income.

In addition, she has set up a women's shelter and resource center for victims of violence, while her memoir, "In the Name of Honor", was published in 2006 and has been translated into 23 languages.